1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic cash register capable of calculating a sales tax. More specifically, the present invention relates to an improved system and method for calculating a sales tax imposed upon the total amount of sales based on a predetermined sales tax collection schedule, in an electronic cash register.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In certain countries such as the United States a retail sales tax is imposed upon the total amount of retail sales, based on a predetermined retail sales tax collection schedule. It is desired to provide a electronic cash register that can calculate the sales tax as well as a total amount of sales upon entering various data therein such as a commodity code, a unit price, the number of the commodities, etc.
For that purpose those skilled in the art might think of an electronic cash register capable of calculating the sales tax based on a predetermined sales tax collection schedule, as comprising a pin board and an operating circuit provided, in addition to a common electronic cash register, for the purpose of selectively setting the said predetermined collection schedule and calculating the sales tax, respectively, in accordance with the entered data and the set data. Usually the pin board is provided independently of the cash register and is adapted for storing various data necessary for calculating the sales tax and there also is provided an information entering or setting means for such data.
FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of such an exemplary electronic cash register capable of calculating the sales tax. Basically, the cash register shown comprises a keying input means 1, a data processing unit 2, a storage 3, a printer 4 and a display 5. The cash register further comprises an additional storage 7 such as a pin board as mentioned above and an information setting means 6 for the storage 7, which are provided for the purpose of storing the data necessary for calculating the sales tax based on the predetermined sales tax collection schedule.
In operation of the FIG. 1 system, the full data associated with the said predetermined sales tax collection schedule necessary for calculating the sales tax is entered in advance through the setting means 6 to the storage 7. In a common registering operation for various commodities, various data such as a commodity code, a unit price, the number of the commodities, etc. are registered, i.e., entered, through the keying input means 1 so that such data are stored in the storage 3. Then the data processing unit 2 makes various arithmetic operations thereon based on the data stored in the storage 3. The results of the operation including a total of the sales are printed out by the printer 4 and displayed by the display 5. The data processing unit 2 performs a further arithmetic operation to calculate the sales tax to be imposed upon the total amount of sales, based on the said total amount of sales and with reference to the data stored in the storage 7. The sales tax as thus calculated is also printed out by the printer 4 and displayed by the display 5.
One problem encountered in connection with the abovementioned exemplary electronic cash register is that it is necessary to provide an additional storage 7 such as a pin board, independently of a common electronic cash register, for the purpose of storing full information concerning the sales tax collection schedule, which requires a relatively large capacity of storage and thus increases the cost of the electronic cash register. Another problem encountered in the abovementioned register is that full information concerning the sales tax collection schedule must be entered or set for each electronic cash register, which is tiresome and time consuming. This is aggravated by the fact that particularly in the United States the sales tax collection schedule is different from state to state.
Thus it would be desirable if there would be provided an improved system and method for calculating the sales tax imposed upon the total amount of sales based on a predetermined sales tax collection schedule in an electronic cash register wherein the operation of setting, or entering the information or data concerning the sales tax collection schedule is simplified.